FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: September 7, 1999 Andrea Buffa 415-546-6334 x309
PACIFICA FOUNDATION TURNS OVER FIGURES TO CALIFORNIA LEGISLATORS Foundation admits spending $500,000 to shut down KPFA as censorship campaign escalates at KPFK, Pacifica's Los Angeles station.
Under threat of subpoena the Pacifica Foundation today handed over financial records to the California Joint Legislative Audit Committee, chaired by Scott Wildman, D-Glendale. The committee requested the documents as part of an investigation into Pacifica's compliance with non-profit regulations, undertaken at the urging of Assemblymember Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley.
Pacifica Executive Director Lynn Chadwick turned over documentation of the foundation's recent expenditures to Wildman's office. Pacifica controls the license of KPFA, the nation's oldest listener-sponsored radio station, as well as the licenses of four other progressive community sponsored stations across the country. The foundation closed down KPFA for 23 days this summer, locking out staff and broadcasting canned programming in place of the station's usual lively mix of local and national news and music.
As many staff and community supporters of KPFA had feared, Chadwick revealed that Pacifica has spent half a million dollars on armed guards and a high-priced public relations firm in its campaign to silence local programmers. According to Chadwick's figures, Pacifica spent over $380,000 on guards alone.
"For Pacifica to spend $500,000 of listener funds to carry out a hostile take-over at KPFA in the face of principled and non-violent community opposition is clearly in violation of organization's mission," said Media Alliance executive director Andrea Buffa. "This is more evidence that Pacifica's leadership, including Lynn Chadwick and board chair Dr. Mary Frances Berry, is incapable of leading the network out of this crisis and must step down."
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, KPFK management canceled the city's only non-commercial Spanish language public affairs program because it mentioned the crisis spreading through the Pacifica network.
"This is a community station, paid for by the contributions of people who want to hear coverage that is free and uncensored," said Enfoque Latino Executive Producer Rubén Tapia. "Management is acting as if it is completely unaccountable to its listeners."
The cancellation of Enfoque Latino comes just days after another KPFK journalist, Robin Urevich, was banned from the station for writing about the conflict between Pacifica and its stations in an alternative newspaper.
85% of Pacifica's revenues come from its listener-sponsors. Long known as a bastion of free speech, Pacifica's national management and board leadership have recently censored and arrested journalists in Northern California, threatened to sell its Berkeley or New York stations, and censored reporters at its Los Angeles and Washington D.C. stations.
For background information, see www.savepacifica.net or www.radio4all.org/freepacifica.
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